2 Samuel 23:1-7
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
Over tea and homemade pie yesterday afternoon, a church member asked me about the church’s celebration of Christmas. He remembered that when he was growing up in Scotland there were no special church services for Christmas, and gifts were exchanged at New Year’s rather than on December 25th. Indeed, Christmas didn’t become a national holiday in Scotland until fairly recently.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know when Canadian Presbyterians or other Protestants began celebrating Christmas, nor did I know when Canada made Christmas Day into a statutory holiday. I could point out that all the Churches have gone through some significant liturgical reform over the last 30 or 40 years. One significant reform is the celebration of the Church Year in most of the mainline Churches. The Church Year includes not only special Christmas services, but also special seasons like Advent to anticipate and prepare for our Christmas celebrations.
Growing up in a Canadian Presbyterian Church in the 1980’s, we were already lighting Advent Candles on the Sundays leading up to Christmas, and I think it was a fairly long standing tradition to gather for worship on Christmas Eve for a service of lessons and carols that was one of … Read more »